On May 21, Sonic Youth will reopen their Reverb shop for the third time since launching it in 2018. The legendary New York art-rock band is selling a collection of vintage pedals and guitars, among them a studio-used, modified Fender Jazzmaster and Lee Ranaldo’s first-ever electric guitar, a Hagstrom II. Other available gear will include a Ludwig Phase II Synthesizer that gave Washing Machine’s 20-minute epic “The Diamond Sea” its distinctive sound, a custom Parametric EQ used on Sonic Youth’s debut album, Confusion Is Sex, and a set of Urei studio monitors from the original New York Knitting Factory.
“At some point, when my first band, the Fluks, was playing, I needed an amp, and I traded this guitar and, like, $60 to my drummer at that time, David Linton’s sister, who had a Super Reverb Amp,” Ranaldo said of the Hagstrom II in a clip announcing the sale. “That became my first target amp and it basically set the precedent for exactly what I wanted to play out of the rest of my life, basically.”
Additional items that fans and collectors can purchase: an original Foxx Tone Machine pedal, a Mu-Tron Bi-Phase used on Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves, an acoustic guitar Ranaldo played at one of Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit concerts, an electronic tabla, zither, and two stamp pads used to print the image of a guitar neck for writing out chord charts by hand.
Last year, Modest Mouse and Wilco both launched their own Reverb stores. The extensive record and music memorabilia collection of the late Steve Albini—himself a noted Sonic Youth detractor—is also currently being sold online via a weekly digital estate sale on the website Steve Albini’s Closet.
Revisit the article “You Don’t Have to Be Rich to Buy Your Favorite Band’s Gear Anymore.”
https://pitchfork.com/news/sonic-youth-to-reopen-reverb-shop-to-sell-studio-used-guitars-pedals
